


Tea

by Wallwalker



Series: Our Haven [4]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Cultural Differences, F/M, Mid-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 10:22:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallwalker/pseuds/Wallwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a long journey, Barret and Tifa have a chance to rest in Wutai, to drink tea and watch the sun come up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea

Wutai wasn't a bad place to be, Barret decided, once you got used to it.

He and Tifa were sitting near the edge of the town, waiting for the sun to come up. Things were calmer now than it had been when they'd first arrived in town, when Yuffie had managed to steal every damn piece of their materia right under all of their noses. Cloud had handled it, though, with Aeris and that crazy old engineer Cid, and now the whole bunch of them had a real chance to sit down. Barret might not like waitin' around, but he also wasn't lookin' forward to another trip to that loud, gaudy tourist trap that Shinra had built on top of his old home.

The guy who ran the town was bein' a lot nicer to them now that they'd saved Yuffie's life, or at least that was how Aeris told it. Accordin' to her he'd said that he'd never be able to stop worrying about his daughter, that no dad would ever be able to stop, no matter how old they got. Hopefully Barret would be able to find that out for himself, someday.

They'd already polished off some rice and fish and green stuff for breakfast, Tifa more than him - he'd never liked fish, although he'd given this stuff a fair try before he decided he didn't like it much either. Now they just had what was left of a pot of some kinda tea, and he'd drank most of it already.

"Do you like the tea, Barret?" Tifa asked, her smile wry as Barret poured the last of the pot into his teacup, although it was really more like a fancy white bowl than anything else.

"Sure, yeah. This stuff's different, but it's pretty good," he said, just before draining it dry. He probably drank it faster than the people around here liked, from what Aeris had told him and Tifa about the ceremony they'd done for her, Cid and Cloud after they'd brought Yuffie back. Who knew that the spunky little tomboy would turn out to be the closest thing to a princess that Barret figured he'd ever meet? 

"You think so?" Tifa gave him a tiny smile as she slid her bowl over to him, still warm, barely touched.

"Yeah, ain't bad at all. Tastes kinda like honey - oh, thanks." He took it, looking at the pale liquid that swirled around in the bowl. White, shiny glaze, painted flowers - yeah, they took this stuff real seriously, Aeris had said. Godo had told 'em what to do, and he'd been so grave about it that she'd nearly giggled the whole time - and it didn't help that Cid had taken it almost as seriously as the Wutaians, that he'd gotten quieter and more dignified than she'd thought he could possibly ever get. It was a good thing she hadn't laughed, though, she'd said - Godo and Cid probably would have both had heart attacks, or worse! "Still ain't sure I can call it tea, though," Barret continued after taking another gulp, downing about half of the bowl all at once. "We had tea back home, and this ain't nothin' like it."

Tifa took a drink from her own canteen of water, then gave him a curious look. "Oh? What kind of tea did you drink?"

"Well, for one thing, it wasn't hot like this." 

"You drank your tea cold?" she asked, puzzled. 

"Sure did! Cold as ice, and real sweet. And Myrna liked to add lemon to it, when we could get some in that weren't too expensive. Tasted real good after a day in the mines, I'll tell ya that." He smiled at the memory, sitting on the porch of his little house, Myrna sitting across from him and reading one of her worn, dogeared books, watching the sun set and thinking that for all that times got hard sometimes, the world was a pretty good place.

It felt like a lifetime ago. Hell, he figured in a way that it was. Things hadn't been that simple for him in a real long time.

"That makes sense, I guess," Tifa said, thoughtfully. "It was probably a lot warmer down there."

"Hell, you've seen it," he said, and shook his head. "Or what's left of it...."

"Barret," she said, in the same old tone she used when she didn't want to sound too cross but she needed him to stop doing somethin', like getting mad at a customer who was givin' her a hard time so that she could handle him herself. Or spendin' too much time dwellin' on the past, this time.

"I'm all right," he said. "Guess I can understand it for you, too. Nibelheim's a damn cold place."

"That's an understatement. It's too warm here for hot tea... besides, Dad always liked to add warm milk to ours, and it was stronger than this anyway. I don't think I'd ever get used to this."

"Hm." He took a drink of her abandoned warm green tea, and then put the bowl back down. The sun was starting to rise, coloring the mountains a brilliant orange. Good time to change the subject, he figured. "Real pretty, ain't it?"

"Yes. It is." She was smiling for real now, looking out at the mountains. "I used to hate it when Mom and Dad woke me up to watch the sunrise. Now... I don't think I'll ever get tired of it."

"Yeah," he agreed. He'd gotten up before sunrise all the time when he'd worked in the mines, and he'd hated it, hated leaving his warm bed and having to slave underground all day. But now he'd wake up early every day for the rest of his damned life if it meant gettin' to see the sun come up again. "I know exactly what you mean."

She smiled at him, and reached across the table to take his hand. He turned away, which was all right; it gave him a chance to admire the sunlight reflected in her big brown eyes. "I know."


End file.
